It was known for a computer to have a field-replaceable unit (FRU) which is directly or indirectly connected to a system board to provide vital product data (“VPD”) to components on the system board. (Alternately, the VPD can be stored in a permanent component in the system board, such as a chip soldered onto a board.) VPD typically includes a serial number and a type number of either the system board or the computer as a whole (referred to as “system vital product data”).
It was known for an FRU to take the form of a physical module plugged into a USB socket of a system board. Such FRUs have been plugged into known system boards or “blades” of IBM BladeCenter® computers to provide VPD. Consequently, when replacing a system board, a technician can simply unplug the known FRU from the old system board and plug the same FRU into the new system board to transfer the VPD to the new system board.
A computer system board typically includes firmware to provide a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) or alternatively the BIOS, diagnostics code such as Dynamic System Analysis (DSA), the Integrated Management Module (IMM), and even field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA). The basic functionality of the firmware is tailored to the specific system on which it runs, and when the system board is replaced, the replacement system board must be updated with the correct firmware. The technician may also need to update the firmware of the new system board to operate and synchronize with other components elsewhere in the computer.
Furthermore, settings or user preferences corresponding to the above mentioned firmware functionalities must also be reset or entered in the replacement system board. In the prior art, the technician updated the firmware and settings in the new system board by querying the system, prior to replacement, for current versions of firmware running and for current settings used by the firmware. Alternatively, the technician could receive this information from an owner or user of the system if they kept track of the installed firmware and selected settings. The technician could then obtain a copy of the correct firmware version from the producer of that version. After replacing the system board, the technician would use a boot disk containing the correct firmware versions to load the firmware on the replacement system board. After installing the correct firmware, the technician would manually enter the settings from the original system board into the replacement system board.